Unionized conductors, engineers, trainmen and yardmen for Canadian Pacific Railway are getting their ballots for a strike vote this month, as contract talks have again wound up in dispute.
The Teamsters Canada Rail Conference (TCRC), which represents about 3,000 CP employees in those categories, said strike ballots were being distributed to members starting Feb. 1, with the balloting period to start Friday and run to Feb. 21.
In a release Thursday, the union said it expects to have the results of its vote in hand by the end of the month.
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The union’s negotiating committee had said in a memo to local chairs in December that it would file a “notice of dispute” with the federal labour ministry regarding its talks with Calgary-based CP.
Labour Minister Seamus O’Regan named a conciliator/mediator from his department’s Federal Mediation and Conciliation Services (FMCS) to support the negotiation process, the union said Thursday.
Teamster and CP representatives were scheduled to have taken part in meetings with the FMCS conciliator Tuesday to Thursday in Calgary.
Legally, the union noted, a work stoppage can only happen following a 21-day “cooling-off” period after the conciliation process is completed.
The “main issues at hand” in the Teamsters’ dispute with CP are wages, benefits, and pensions, the union said.
CP’s latest collective bargaining agreement with its Teamster-led conductors, engineers, trainmen and yardmen expired at the end of 2021. That four-year deal was reached after a one-day strike in May 2018.
The contract leading up to the 2018 strike was itself reached after a one-day strike in February 2015, ending when the union and company went to binding arbitration. — Glacier FarmMedia Network
